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Korea crisis intensifies

Barney PorterUpdated
Wed 3 Apr 2013, 2:19 PM AEDT

The crisis on the Korean peninsula has again intensified. This morning, the United States vowed to defend itself and its regional allies against any attack, while the North Koreans said they'd re-open a nuclear reactor that makes weapons-grade plutonium. And a short time ago, North Korea delayed the entry of South Koreans to a joint industrial complex on their border, with up to 900 South Koreans already inside. With each development, the UN is warning that the situation could easily spin out of control.

Transcript

ELEANOR HALL: Let's go now to the crisis on the Korean peninsula which has escalated further today.

A short time ago, North Korea delayed the entry of South Koreans to a joint industrial complex on their border. Up to 900 South Koreans are already inside.

And the North Koreans are also vowing to reopen a nuclear reactor that makes weapons-grade plutonium.

The White House says it will defend the US and its regional allies against any attack. With each development, the UN is warning that the situation could spiral out of control.

Barney Porter has the latest.

BARNEY PORTER: Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been escalating since the North launched a long-range rocket last December, then held a nuclear test in February.

Now, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has declared the Stalinist state will increase its production of nuclear weapons material, including restarting a long-closed plutonium reactor,

KIM JONG-UN (voice-over): The imperialists are threatening us with nuclear weapons. So we will make building our economy and our nuclear weapons our top priorities.

BARNEY PORTER: That's prompted strong words from the US secretary of state, John Kerry.

JOHN KERRY: We've heard an extraordinary amount of unacceptable rhetoric from the North Korean government in the last days. So let me be perfectly clear here today. The United States will defend and protect ourselves and our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea.

BARNEY PORTER: Mr Kerry made the declaration at a joint media conference in Washington, standing next to his South Korean counterpart.

To match his rhetoric, the US has deployed a sophisticated radar off the coast of Japan, capable of tracking North Korean missiles, and has also sent a second destroyer to the region.

Pentagon spokesman, George Little.

GEORGE LITTLE: On the Decatur and the McCain, they have arrived at predetermined positions in the western Pacific, where they will be poised to respond to any missile threats to our allies or our territory.

BARNEY PORTER: Bruce Klingner is a north-east Asia expert with the Heritage Foundation.

He's told Al Jazeera it will take at least a year for the North Koreans to get the Soviet-era reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear plant up and running to produce plutonium. But he has wider concerns.

BRUCE KLINGNER: Centrifuges are in uranium programs, much easier to conceal than a plutonium program. In fact that facility at Yongbyon had been created at a covert site we did not know of. It was moved into Yongbyon without our awareness. So we don't know how many other covert facilities of uranium that North Korea currently has.

JAMES ACTON: Make no mistake, this is a dangerous and volatile situation on the Korean peninsula. The South Korean government is worried, the US government is worried, and I think they have good reason to be.

BARNEY PORTER: James Acton is with the Carnegie Endowment. He's says he's not necessarily concerned about the possibility of a nuclear confrontation.

JAMES ACTON: What does worry me is that North Korea might commit another provocation. If you think back to 2010 when North Korea sank a South Korean ship, killing 46 sailors, or when it shelled a South Korean island, killing two more people, North Korea has shown itself willing to initiate these kinds of provocations.

South Korea has said that if North Korea does it again, we're going to strike back. If South Korea does that, you then find yourself in a war situation on the Korean peninsula. That's what worries me right now.

BARNEY PORTER: China, the US, South Korea and the UN are all calling for a return to the six-party talks that the North pulled out of in 2008.

PJ Crowley is a former advisor to the US State Department. He says the North Koreans have clear objectives.

PJ CROWLEY: They're crazy and they're not stupid. They desperately want a resolution of this conflict on their terms. They want normal relations with the world, they want international assistance and they want to keep their nuclear weapons, and the dilemma is that the international community is saying you can have one of those, two of those, but not all three.